


Flower's for Dinosaurs

by thunderbolts_no



Category: Primeval
Genre: Bringing the US into the show, Gen, I guess it's an alternate universe, Kinda, Literally the first chapter is new characters, New Agency, new characters - Freeform, nothing else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11262945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunderbolts_no/pseuds/thunderbolts_no
Summary: Tori, Daphne, and Ben have been friends since university when they first discovered the tears in time. They’ve been working on their own, fighting dinosaurs and figuring out how to find the glowing orbs. When FBI agents show up at their door, everything changes and they’re thrust into a whole new world. Across the pond, another government agency is doing the same thing. When the two groups meet, everything changes.





	Flower's for Dinosaurs

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This has been in the works for a while now. I have 2 chapters planned, but the first is the only one finished. I might never finish the second one, but if I don't I'll put a note up and give you guys the storyline so I don't leave you all hanging.
> 
> Hope you guys like this. I know I enjoyed writing it.

It starts with a knocking at the door.

Well, no, in reality it started much earlier than that, when Tori, Daphne, and Ben were all stuck in the same history class at the same liberal arts school doing the same group project on women's role in the American revolution. It started with a camping trip that took a turn for the worst. It started with a glowing orb of gold light, and a dinosaur.

And it starts with insistent knocking on the door of the penthouse apartment they all share.

“Open up!” A man's voice, the pounding on the door growing increasingly louder as Ben frantically tries to lock down his computer system, Tori runs around looking for pants before booking it upstairs to continue her search, and Daphne sits calmly at the island countertop and drinks her tea, reveling in the chaos around her.

Finally, Daphne has enough, and goes to open the door. Ben swivels around in his chair, trying to look casual, and Tori runs down the stairs wearing jeans that look like Ben owns them. Ben probably owns them.

“FBI,” The man at the door holds up a badge and motions to the two men standing behind him in SWAT uniform, “Agent Graham Nelson. Special Circumstances Unit.” Daphne raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow and him and partially steps aside. Agent Nelson takes it as a invitation. The SWAT team members follow.

He scans the open floor plan of the apartment, his gaze lingering on the food on the counter, Tori’s jeans, Ben’s computers, and the view outside the floor-to ceiling windows on the far wall. His face remains expressionless.

“You gonna tell us why you’re here, or is this just a personal call?” Tori blurts out finally (of course its Tori, it’s always Tori) before crossing her arms over her chest. She and Agent Nelson lock eyes for a few seconds before he raises his eyebrows.

“I take it you’re Victoria Rosario then?” His voice betrays his expression with his amusement, but whether its amusement towards Tori’s attitude or amusement towards what’s going to happen Daphne doesn’t know. All she knows is that the FBI is in her apartment, and she hopes Ben locked down his computer on time or they’re all screwed.

“What’s it to you?” Tori has never been able to back down from a fight, Daphne knows this after living with her for 2 years and knowing her for 6, but she seriously was hoping Tori had learned. Apparently Tori hadn’t.

“I’m looking for Victoria Rosario, Daphne Kent, and Benjamin Ortiz. I sincerely hope you three are them.” Agent Nelson moves to the couch and sits himself down, taking a small manila envelope out of his suit jacket and setting it on the coffee table.

“And if we are?” Tori moves to sit on the couch across from him, grabbing her tea mug from the island as she does, “What are you going to do?” Ben stays where he is in his chair, but scoots it closer to the couches. Daphne lets the door close as she moves closer as well. The SWAT members, one carrying a briefcase, stay by the door.

“So you are, in fact, Victoria, Daphne, and Benjamin?” Agent Nelson motions to the SWAT members, “It’s very important.” The SWAT team member with the briefcase places it on the counter and opens it, pulling out a black box. Switching it on, he nods to Agent Nelson.

“Yes,” Daphne answers this time, taking a seat beside Tori, “I’m Daphne Kent. This is Tori Rosario, and he’s Ben Ortiz.” She smiles grimly at Agent Nelson.

“What is this about?” Ben asks from his chair, where he’s fiddling with his fingers in an attempt to calm his anxiety.

“It’s been recently brought to the government's attention that, for lack of a better term, tears in time have been appearing across the United States. These things, these aberrations,” Agent Nelson opened the manila envelope and tipped its contents onto the coffee table. Photos of the same glowing golden orb in different locations spilled out, along with papers with lines of code and surveillance photos. Ben immediately started looking through the photos and pages, desperate to do something with his hands.

Daphne looks from the photos Ben was sorting and Tori was looking at to Agent Nelson and raises her eyebrow again. “What does this have to do with us?”

“These surveillance photos have been taken at 3 different aberration sites around the Washington Area. At all 3, you all have been spotted. In some cases, you’ve been pushing dinosaurs back through these things. In others, you’re somehow closing or shutting down the aberrations.” Agent Nelson rifles through the pile until he finds the photos he was referencing, and spreads them out on the coffee table for them.

Daphne scans the photos, trying to match the locations and the dinosaurs to ones they’d had to deal with. Sure enough, all of the photos were from aberrations they’d dealt with in the last year. And in all three locations, the cameras got clear shots of each of their faces.

Daphne glances at Ben and Tori, and finds the latter has gone back to looking at photo’s of the aberrations and the former seems to be analyzing the surveillance photos for forgery.

“To be quite frank, the government wants your help.” Agent Nelson continues speaking as all three heads snapped up to him, “Scientists are just starting to do research into what these things are, and it seems like you three already know what you’re doing. We’ve been watching you for some time now, we know you three graduated with masters in every area you would need to succeed in this kind of work, from Benjamin’s genius hacking and computer knowledge to Tori’s exceptional knowledge of the prehistoric eras, to Daphne’s biological knowledge of fauna.” Agent Nelson starts gathering up the files.

“You want us to work for some little group of scientists trying to understand these aberrations?” Ben sounds incredulous at the thought. Daphne has to smile, it sounds a little weird even for her. Working for the government, being expected to turn over every bit of research and knowledge they’d gained through painful trial and error? It sounds ridiculous.

“Of course not,” Agent Nelson gives a smile at that and takes the last of photos out of Tori’s hands. She stays unnaturally silent throughout this process, until the manila envelope is closed with the papers back inside it.

“So what? You came here to tell us all this while the two SWAT members steal all the information from Ben’s computer? Is that what the little black box on the counter is for?” Tori motions with her head to the black box as Ben gives a yell of surprise, spinning around to make sure his computer is secure.

“Of course not.” Agent Nelson looks uncomfortable at the idea, “We, we being the team already set up and the government liaisons waiting to hear what you’re answer will be, want you to lead a military research team. The Aberration Detection Agency to be precise.” He puts the manila envelope back in his suit jacket.

“To be honest, I find you all a little young to be leading a highly-funded government and military research team, but you’ve been doing very well on your own and my boss seems to believe you’ll do even better with some real funding behind you.”

Tori is silent for a moment before she looks back at the counter, “And the box?”

“An anti-bug device. Makes sure this conversation wasn’t monitored.”

“At the same time taping it so that you have proof of this conversation should the need to ensure this conversation happened ever arise?” Tori presses, one corner of her mouth turning up as Agent Nelson’s eyes widen for a second at her almost-accusation.

“Of course not,” Agent Nelson said, “What makes you think that?”

Tori shrugs and gives a sharp smile, “No reason. Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t being taped without my knowledge, you know privacy and all that.” She turns to Ben. “Yo, B, you don't making sure they didn’t remotely break into your computer?”

Ben immediately swivels in his chair, “Yep, all good. No break ins, nothing, nada, zip, zer-”

“We get it brainiac,” Daphne rolls her eyes fondly, “You’re computer is a-ok.”

“This job leading the research team for ABA or whatever the name is,” Tori turns back to Agent Nelson and Daphne can practically see the ideas in her eyes, “How much does it pay? What are the office hours? Vacation days? How many people already work there? Will we have power over who we work with? Will we have power over what we do for the government? Or is it more like a ‘they say jump and we don’t even ask how high’ type of gig?”

Agent Nelson smiles, waving a hand at the SWAT agents. One of them brings over a large manila envelope from the briefcase and pulls out three stacks of paper.

Ben wheels himself over and takes a seat on the couch, on the other side of Tori.

“These are the contracts. They detail everything about the job, from salary to vacation days to company policy regarding all the questions you asked.” Agent Nelson slides one in front of each of them.

“Okay,” Tori picks the one in front of her up and starts flipping through it, “Can you walk me through each of the points. In itty bitty words if you don't mind,” She stops flipping, “Too much legal bullshit gives me a headache.”

“While you do that,” Daphne takes her own and stands up, “I’m going to scan the cover page and send it to my aunt.”

“The lawyer?” Ben questions absentmindedly, as he reads the first page of the contract.

“Yeah, the lawyer.” Daphne starts to move toward the computer.

“I’m afraid you can’t do that.” Agent Nelson stops her with a hand on her arm, “The contents of these contracts cannot be seen by unauthorized persons, including your lawyer aunt.” He pulls her back and she sits back down, “I will, however, go through each part of the contract with you in itty bitty words, as Victoria stated earlier. If there's anything you don’t find satisfactory, I’m sure arrangements can be made.”

“You’re not really with the FBI, are you?” Ben asks as Daphne gets situated again, and puts her contract back on the table.

Agent Nelson gives a shrew smile, “What fun would that be?”

*

The Aberration Detection Agency, or ADA as most of the workers call it Daphne notices, is nothing like what she assumed it was going to be. It’s all gleaming chrome and state of the art tech sitting in an office block that looks like it should be home to a group of starving artists, with exposed brick and aesthetically grungy floors.

From the looks on Ben and Tori’s faces as their led through the building, they feel the same way.

It’s been almost 3 weeks since Agent Nelson, no, since Nelson (not an FBI agent) had handed Daphne, Ben, and Tori the contracts. Two days ago, the rewrites Tori had insisted necessary to them all signing on, including a bit of control over who they work with, larger salaries, and a whole number of little things that someone who claimed to not understand corporate jargon shouldn’t have understood, had come through after being approved the week before, and the contracts sent back to them along with Nelson to make sure they sign.

And now they’re being led through ADA headquarters.

Nelson gives them ‘the grand tour’, showing off everything the office had to offer, which was quite a lot. Daphne sees Ben’s eyes light up at the rooms of gadgets and the tech specs of the central computers, and Tori’s gaze keeps wandering to where the armory was pointed out early in the tour.

Daphne smiles to herself, she loves these idiots with all her heart.

“Where is everyone?” Tori asks as Nelson finishes an explanation of the prehistoric animal database ADA has put together. Daphne frowns, realising for the first time that they’d seen no one else in the compound since they’d arrived.

“Well,” Nelson pauses and looks down at the floor for a second, “The scientists all have the day off since I’m teaching you the ropes of ADA, and as for the military team backing you up, you get the privilege, due to Victoria’s shrewd editing of the contract, to choose your own team from a number of people. I was just about to bring you to the main room next, to help you along with that process.” Nelson points to the big double doors at the end of the corridor.

“Do we not get to pick the researchers and scientists?” Ben asks.

“We cannot fire the senior scientists, the one’s who have been here in the beginning,” Nelson begins walking down the corridor and Tori and Ben follow, an exasperated Daphne pulling up the rear, “But you will be able to choose from a number of candidates to create a betta and a gamma team. You three, of course, will be making up the alpha team, along with the military members you choose.”

Nelson pushes the double doors open and ushers the three inside. The doors close with a metallic hiss behind them.

The room they’re standing in is large, with a low hanging ceiling and the same exposed brickwork on the walls that the rest of the building has. The tabletops and counters are gleaming chrome, set up in 4 islands in the center of the room. Each island has a blank computer screen sitting on it. On the far wall is 4 TV screens all showing scrolling data streams overlaying maps of Washington DC and the surrounding areas.

“Welcome to HQ,” Nelson says dryly, before pointing to one of the islands, which has 3 piles of manila folders on it, “That’s where all the files of the military personnel and the scientists are. Read through them, look at the video interviews of each of them if you want. You have the day to sort through the files for the military personnel.”

Daphne and Tori rush over to the files immediately, leaving Ben standing with Nelson.

“And for the second and third research teams? How long do we have?” He asks.

“3 people to a team, so I need a list of at least 9 personnel, and at the most 12, by tonight. You three can then spend the week doing proper interviews with them to whittle it down to six.” Nelson answers. “I’ll be in my office. If you need anything,” Ben nods and joins Daphne and Tori at the island, who are already sorting through the military personnel files. Nelson leaves them to their work

*

“So what sort of thing do you think we should be looking for in military personnel?” Tori asks, scanning the file before putting it in the ‘maybe’ pile, the largest of the piles the three have managed to create. “Experience in the military, number of awards, number of tours, stats, background, personality, looks,” Daphne gives a sly smile at that one, “I mean seriously, what are we supposed to be looking for.”

“Think compatibility,” Daphne answers after a few seconds, “We need to know that we can not only work with these people, but also put our trust in them, and maybe even our lives. We need to know we’re compatible.” Daphne drops the file she’s reading, of a ‘Sergeant James Rodgers’ in the ‘no’ pile. “I mean, we’re hunting dinosaurs for pete’s sake, we need to get along with our team.”

“That sounds so weird, ‘our team’,” Ben comments, dropping his file in the ‘no’ pile as well, “It almost doesn't feel real. This used to just be something we did in between writing our theses and our masters classes, and before that it was traumatic experiences we wanted to get over. And now it might just turn out to be our job.” He picks up another file.

“Yeah,” Daphne looks down at the new file she’s picked up, a ‘Captain Karl Garrett’ and opened it, “Remember back when this was just us using a radio we grabbed from Tori’s grandma driving around in my jeep looking for glowing lights?” She chuckles as she reads the file, “Good times.”

“Oh grandmama,” Tori sighs dramatically, putting the folder she’s reading to her chest, “Thank you for owning that piece of shit radio, otherwise we may never have figured out how to track these things.”

Ben bursts out laughing. Daphne tries, and fails, to hide her smile at Tori’s antics and drops the file of ‘Karl Garrett’ in the ‘maybe’ pile. Her smile slides from her face as she remembers how scared they’d been back then, how utterly confused they were about the aberrations and how terrified they’d been of the dinosaurs.

To think how far they’d all come.

“Okay,” Tori’s voice brings Daphne out of her thoughts, “So we have no more military files. The rest,” She points to the stack none of them had touched yet, “Are all researchers. What do we do now?”

“I say we go through our maybe pile again,” Ben speaks up, dropping his last file in the ‘no’ pile, “And after we’ve done that we start looking at videos?”

Daphne nods at his suggestion, and they all get to work.

*

By the time lunch rolls around, Daphne, Ben, and Tori have taken the maybe 50 files of military personnel down to just 10. They begin to power up the computer as Nelson walks into HQ, followed by the two SWAT members from their first meeting 3 weeks ago.

“I hope everything’s going well,” Nelson says, bringing the three heads bent over files to turn and stare at him, “But I’m assuming you’re all hungry.” Tori nods furiously, “We can have something brought to you since you all seem extremely busy.” He eyes the computer, where Ben is looking up the video’s of the final 10 personnel.

“Cool dude. I’d like Indian, something really spicy, along with naan bread and rice.” Tori flashes a sharp smile, “You think you can handle that?” Daphne is tempted to put her head in her hands, of course Tori is going to try and fucking bait Nelson. Stupid confrontational girl.

“I think that can be arranged,” Nelson isn’t ruffled by Tori’s comment in the slightest, and her smile widens. He looks to Daphne, “And for you?”

“Pepperoni pizza with a side of breadsticks. Ben’ll share with me.” Daphne tries to smile at Nelson. He doesn’t return it.

“Victoria, would you mind changing your order so I don’t have to go to two different places for food,” Nelson looks at Tori with a grimace.

“Indian food or bust dude,” Tori rebuffs, not looking up from the file she’s rereading for the millionth time.

Nelson audibly huffs before composing himself, “You’re going to be the difficult one, right?”

“It took you this long to figure that out?” Tori raises an eyebrow and looks at him, a smile playing on her lips, “And here I thought you were smart.”

Nelson doesn’t grace her with a reply, just turns to walk out. “Your lunch will be here in 40 minutes. It would have been 20, if Victoria had decided she wanted pizza instead of Indian.” And with that, Nelson is gone. The two SWAT members follow after him.

“You just had to have Indian food,” Ben gives Tori his best attempt at a glare, and she starts giggling.

“What?” She says between fits. It’s hard for Daphne not to laugh too, his ‘glare’ face comes off as downright adorable. “If I get Indian food, there’s no way either of you will steal it. Daph can’t stand spice, and you don’t like how they cook the rice.”

*

A pepperoni pizza and lamb curry later, Nelson walks into HQ to see Tori, Ben, and Daphne looking into the researcher personnel files. A single army personnel file is placed within arms distance of Daphne on the island, and the rest are in a pile on the floor by Ben. The computer is off.

“I suppose you’ve decided who you want to lead the military team assigned to you?” Nelson eyes the empty pizza box and food containers stacked on another island as he crosses the floor to their island, “Who’d you pick?”

“Captain Everett Mckinney, Marine Corps.” Tori answers, pointing at the file, “He’s young, has a face I probably won’t ever feel like punching, has a voice that won’t bother Ben while on comms, and got a purple heart for rescuing people during an ‘incident’ that sounds a lot like an aberration, which means he’s got experience in this kind of work.”

“He also assaulted another officer.” Nelson raises an eyebrow as he looks through the file, “Aside from the things Victoria listed, why do you want him?”

“He’s compatible with our personalities, and we think we’d get along.” Daphne answers this time, “Him being a good soldier is just as important as how much we can trust him and befriend.” Ben nods along with her words, but doesn’t look up from the file he’s perusing.

Nelson sighs, “Fine. I’ll give the marines a call tonight.” He puts the file under his arm, “How are you getting along with the research team. I need at least 9 personnel.” Nelson looks at the piles trying to distinguish which ones are which.

“We’re using the same process as before,” Ben looks up finally, “Looking for compatibility along with general specs, then going back and doing it all over again with our ‘yay’ pile until we have about 10 left. It took us the entire morning for the military personnel, it’ll only take up to 2 hours for the researchers.”

“You do know you won’t have to spend as much time with the researchers as you will with Captain Mckinney.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Tori looks up sharply, “All the people working with us have to have good personalities. They need to be able to work together in this line of work, compatibility and personality are important here.” Nelson acknowledges a look in her eyes, like she knows exactly what she’s talking about. For the first time, he wonders what happened to these people to bring them into this back when they were in university.

“I’ll let you get back to it then. We don’t want to waste any time.” Nelson takes the file and leaves.

Tori’s eyes follow him the entire time.

“Yo, Tor, calm down,” Daphne hisses at her once the door to HQ closes, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I know,” Tori looks down at the file, “I just, I remember what it was like in the beginning for us. How difficult it was because we couldn’t work together to save our lives.” She shuts the file and drops it into the ‘no’ pile, “These people don’t know anything about what it’s actually like to work with these things.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Daphne presses, “To make sure they know what they’re doing. And it’s not like they’re completely helpless, yeah?” She smiles at Tori.

Tori attempts to smile back, “Yeah.”

*

In person, Captain Everett Mckinney was much taller. Daphne, Ben, and Tori observe him entering HQ from the farthest island, huddled around coffee mugs, looking through the final 10 files they’d picked for the researchers.

He is led in by Nelson, who’s talking about the advantages ADA holds over the military, as well as overselling the researchers he’s going to be working with. Tori can tell he’s overselling them from the way he waves his arms around and how he smiles tightly before pointing to the three in the corner.

“Captain Everett Mckinney?” Daphne is the first to greet him, standing up straight and smiling as she holds her hand out, “Daphne Kent, Team Leader.” They hadn’t actually decided to designations, but it made sense for Daphne to be the leader. She was typically the one keeping Ben and Tori on task.

“Nice to meet you,” Captain Mckinney shakes her hand earnestly before looking between Tori and Ben, “Which makes you,” He points to Tori, “Victoria Rosario. And you,” He points to Ben, “Benjamin Ortiz.”

“Tori,” Tori smiles and shakes his hand, “Dino expert.” Captain Mckinney raises an eyebrow at her designation, but otherwise doesn't say anything. He lets go of her hand and turns to Ben.

“Ben,” Ben waves, “Tech Specs and Comms.” Captain Mckinney nods.

He looks between the three of them and Nelson, “Being hired here has to do with what happened to me in-”

“In Pakistan, yes,” Nelson nods, “It’s the reason you were put on the list of candidates. All the ones looked at had some sort of prior experience with the kind of work we do here. It’s not the reason you were hired, only these 3 can answer that, but it’s the reason you were originally considered.”

Nelson looks from the Captain to the files, “Are these the 10 you decided on? I’ll take those and start setting up interviews. You and Captain Mckinney should start thinking up the questions you want to ask.” Nelson gathers up the files, forcibly pulling one from Tori’s hands as she refuses to give it up, and walks away.

“Well, Captain Mckinney,” Tori purposefully pops every letter in his name as she slouches to sip her coffee, “What exactly happened to you in Pakistan? The file only says you encountered an aberration and got civilians to safety. What dino did you have to fight?” She gives him wide, fake innocent eyes.

“Please, call me Everett. Captain Mckinney sounds formal,” Everett sits down in the empty chair around the island, “And I’ve been told not to talk about what happened to me in Pakistan.”

“Pity,” Tori takes a sip of her coffee, “Well, right now we’re going through the files of the 10 people we’re looking at for a second and third research teams. We won’t work directly with them, but we get to decide who they are.”

“Okay,” Everett reaches for a file and pulls it open, “Shouldn’t there be other people doing this though? We’re an active team, made up of experts in their fields.” Daphne raises an eyebrow at that, “I read your files.”

“Well, normally there would be another group doing this.” Ben interjects, putting down one of the files, “But one of the clauses in our contracts was that we decide who we work with, which includes the military member directly responsible for us and the other two research teams that are going to be trained.” Ben glances at Tori, “It was Tori’s idea.”

“Oh?” Everett looks at Tori.

“I’m difficult to work with, and I find people difficult to work with,” She says plainly, “I thought it was better if we got to decide who we worked with.”

“You mean who you worked with?”

“Precisely.”

“We need to get working on the questions guys,” Daphne grabs a pad of paper from another island while Ben hits the ‘on’ button on the computer, “We have until lunch. Nelson’s most likely gonna start the interviews this afternoon.” She pulls 2 pens out of her bag and starts tearing off sheets of the pad. She passes two of the sheets to Tori and Everett.

“I’ve got my own pencil Daph,” Tori pulls a pencil out of her pocket and Daphne passes the second pen in her hands to Everett.

Ben pulls up a word document, “Okay, so we brainstorm and then I write down our final questions?”

“Sounds good,” Everett nods, “So, how do we want to do this?”

“Start off with their names and ages, obviously,” Ben is adding the name and age brackets to the empty word documents as he speaks.

“And after?”

“Maybe we should start off with their background?” Tori suggests, “Like degrees and stuff. How well they liked the courses, what other things they were looking into, stuff like that?” She starts writing something out on her paper.

“Maybe, but don’t we already have all that information,” Daphne points to the files, “In these?”

“It’s probably a good idea to hear it directly from them,” Everett suggests, “It would be a good introduction. After their names and ages.”

“So, the next category would be schooling?” Ben’s fingers hover over the keyboard, “Is that what we’re going with?”

“Two different things,” Tori interjects, “Their majors and minors in university and why they pursued them, and then what they would have gone into besides what they ended up pursuing.”

“So ‘What do you have a degree in and why?’ and ‘If you could do anything else, what would you do?’ Do those work?” Everett asks.

“The second one definitely,” Ben types it out, “The first one needs to be rephrased.”

“Maybe ‘List your degrees and why you pursued them?’ How about that?” Tori offers.

“A little aggressive, but I think it’ll work,” Daphne nods, “Add a ‘Can you please’ or ‘Could you please’ to the beginning and it’ll be good.”

“Okay, it’s in.” Ben types it out as well, above the other question.

“So what else do we want to know about them?” Everett asks, “Maybe previous employment?”

“We already have that,” Tori motions to the files, “We don’t need to ask about it. But maybe why they left and/or are leaving their previous job for this one. They’re reasons might be good to know. I don’t want to work with someone who’s leaving a nice research lab because the pay here is better.”

“Good idea,” Daphne nods, “Ben?”

“Already putting it in,” Ben’s fingers fly across the keyboard, adding ‘Why did you leave your last job?’ to the list of questions and statements. Everett notices he’s adding spaces between them, most likely so that they can be printed out and used in the interviews to keep track of people.

“I think we should know how well they do in a crisis situation,” Everett says suddenly, “I’m assuming this job is high stakes. They need to be good with crises.”

“Add it in,” Tori nods to Ben, “It’s a good idea. And you’re right, this job is very high stakes.”

“How long have you guys been doing it?”

“We’ve just started working with ADA, but we’ve been chasing aberrations and hunting dinosaurs since we were 20.” Daphne looks at Everett, “Camping trip gone wrong got us into this, and ever since we’ve found it impossible to quit.”

“Wow,” Everett whistles lowly, “and you’re all what? 25?”

“26.” Tori answers, “We’ve been doing this for a while.”

“I can see that,” Everett nods. Nelson had said something about not being sure they were ready for something like this, but 6 years doing this on their own was more than enough experience in his eyes.

“Back to the questions,” Daphne claps her hands, “We need to get these over with. We’re deciding our future here people.”

“Right,” Tori straightens her shoulders, “The questions. We’ve got most of the basics down, but now we need the harder ones. The ones that will separate people into ones we want and ones we don’t want.”

“Of course,” Everett nods again and they all get back to work.

* 6 Months Later *

It happens fast, a short lapse in judgement and the distraction of a red flag waving high above the fighting. Tori is trying to corral the dinosaur back into the anomaly with Daphne and Everett, and Ben is running through the streets of downtown New York with the pterodactyl hot on his trail. No one expects things to go so wrong.

The pterodactyl and the dinosaur see each other, there’s a mad screech, Everett gets distracted by the flag for a second, Tori is shoved out of the way by Daphne, and then the aberration closes, the dinosaur and pterodactyl are gone, and two bloody bodies lie in the street.

There’s a funeral for Daphne and Ben the week after, and Tori isn’t in attendance. A month later she’s back at ADA, but things have drastically changed.

Across the pond, an anomaly opens up and spits Abby Maitland and Connor Temple out into the streets of London.


End file.
